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The Quality of Life (episode)
Data considers risking human lives to preserve robots that he believes qualify as lifeforms. Summary The [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)|USS Enterprise]] arrives at Tyrus VIIa to evaluate a Particle Fountain Project for possible use on Carema III. While Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge is talking with the project lead, Doctor Farallon, a malfunction occurs in one of the station's power grids. Dr. Farallon uses this opportunity to show Commander LaForge another project she has been working on, an exocomp. The exocomp is sent into an access tunnel, and repairs the malfunction very quickly, preventing a shutdown of the station's core which would have taken four months to return to its power level again. Later, Lieutenant Commander Data tests an exocomp on the station and successfully completes fourteen seperate tests. The exocomp is then sent into an access tunnel to seal a plasma conduit. The exocomp returns without finishing its task, and when Dr. Farallon tries to send it back into the access tunnel, her control pad overloads. A few seconds later the plasma conduit explodes. If the exocomp had gone back into the access tunnel, it would have been destroyed. After bringing the exocomp back to the Enterprise for analysis, Data and LaForge discover that the exocomp had shutdown and that the interface circuitry which connected the exocomp to the control-pad was completely burned out. Further investigation revealed that the number of new circuit pathways had increased by 632 percent. Dr. Farallon explains that sometimes an exocomp randomly generates large numbers of new pathways, which ultimately leads to a total shutdown. When this happens the exocomp becomes totally useless and has to be erased and reprogrammed all over again. Data mentioned that the new pathways did not to appear to interfere with the orginal circuitry. This leads LaForge to comment that somehow the exocomp knew that the conduit would explode and therefore it had to leave the access tunnel. Because this remark would imply some form of self-preservation, Data took it upon himself to perfom a level one diagnostic on the exocomp. The diagnostic revealed that the command module was working normally. When checking the exocomp's sensor logs it turned out that the exocomp itself had burned out its own command interface circuitry and then repaired it two hours later. This discovery prompted Data to discuss the definition of life with Doctor Crusher. In a short briefing it was decided to test whether the exocomp possessed a survival instinct or not. A test was created where an exocomp had to repair a small conduit breach in a Jefferies tube in which a plasma cascade failure was simulated by means of a transient overload signal. The exocomp performed the repair and was returned after the plasma overload simulation would have destroyed it. Data performed thirty-four additional tests and all tests had the same outcome. Every single time the exocomp would complete the repairs, and return to Data when commanded by him. However, on the final test, Doctor Crusher was talking to Data so he did not recall the machine. Even so, the exocomp returned automatically and Data noticed it had a different tool than when it entered the tube. In the previous tests, the exocomp was recalled when the simulated plasma overload would have occurred. When Data checked the sensor logs he discovered that the exocomp had deactivated the overload signal. It did not fail the test; it saw right through it. When the particle fountain went critical, the decision was made to reconfigure the exocomps so their powercells would explode when beamed into the particle matter stream. However, due to their survival instincts, the command pathways would have to be disconnected. Data locked out transporter controls, preventing the exocomps from being transported because he did not believed that it was justified to sacrifice one lifeform for another. Commander Riker proposed to ask the exocomps if they where willing to perfom this mission; when their command pathways where reconnected, they reprogrammed the commands Data had entered and altered the transporter coordinates to inside the station core instead of the matter stream. They solved the problem by distorting the particle stream frequency. Unfortunately, one of the exocomps did not survive; it had to stay behind to disrupt the particle stream so the other two could safely be beamed back to the Enterprise. When the Enterprise departed, Dr. Farallon began to study the exocomps and, as a result of the machines' intelligence, not using them as tools. Background Information * Levar Burton was allowed to regrow his beard for this episode since he needed it for his wedding. *The exocomp prop was modified for re-use in Star Trek: Enterprise's "Dead Stop" ten years later. Links and References Guest Stars *Ellen Bry as Dr. Farallon *J. Downing as Kelso References boridium, Carema III, exocomp, Particle Fountain Project, Tyrus VIIa Quality of Life, The de:Datas Hypothese nl:The Quality of Life